Photo collection by Kris Light at Oak Ridge Library

Monday

Jun 10, 2013 at 6:38 PMJun 10, 2013 at 6:41 PM

June brings a photography collection by Kris Light, a naturalist and a science outreach educator for the American Museum of Science and Energy. Her interest in nature and photography has her on the lookout for both the beautiful and bizarre.

June brings a photography collection by Kris Light, a naturalist and a science outreach educator for the American Museum of Science and Energy. Her interest in nature and photography has her on the lookout for both the beautiful and bizarre.

Fungi are often overlooked and misunderstood. Kris' photos of mushrooms, puffballs, stinkhorns and slime molds show some of the variety of shapes, colors and habitats of these organisms. Fungi are not plants; they do not photosynthesize and cannot make their own food. Most fungi are saprophytes; they decompose decaying plant material such as leaves, twigs and logs.

Fungi are all around us; they grow in many different locations and come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Not all fungi grow on the ground, some can be found in trees and on dead logs; one of these grows on decaying vegetation in streams. Most of the fungi in the photographs were found in Oak Ridge, two are from Frozen Head State Park, one from the Smokies and one from Florida.